The Good Shepherd Window

The Good Shepherd Window

John 10:11-16

SERIES SLIDE

Good morning on this Labor Day Weekend.  It is good to worship with you today as we prepare our hearts for Communion.  Last week was wonderful, and it really whetted my appetite for October 18th and our big celebration.  Last week, we started at 10:30 and packed our Sunday full of music, worship, and an amazing presentation of the Gospel in the form of Suzanna Wesley.  Dr. O’Neal did an amazing job of sharing the story and the faith of the Wesley family that led to where we are today!

I find it interesting that as she was telling us about the beginnings of the Methodist Movement, the Delegates of General Conference were gathering in Johannesburg, South Africa for the Second General Conference of the Global Methodist Church.  A couple of things I can share coming out of that General Conference was this:

1) We remain a Bible-Believing, God-Worshipping, Jesus Community, filled by the Holy Spirit seeking to spread Scriptural Holiness across the Globe.  That is who we were and that is who we are!

2) Bishop Leah will be coming home as our Conference Superintendent.  That means, she will no longer be serving as an active Bishop of the Global Methodist Church, but will be a Bishop Emeritus. 

3) Our current Bishop, Kenneth Levingston, has also made the decision to step into the Bishop Emeritus role, and so we will have a new Bishop effective November 1.  His name is Jonathan Lee, and he is a pastor, a church-planter, and spiritual Leader.  I look forward to getting to know him more in the months and years ahead.

finally

4) We will soon have a Book of Worship, called “The Draft Liturgies of the Global Methodist Church”.  It is the first draft of a document that has been in the works for the past two years.  In it we will find new liturgies for Communion, Baptism, weddings, funerals, and other aspects of worship that tie us to our theological roots and our bright future following Christ as Global Methodists.

With all that said, now we move ahead to today’s Window to the Faith.

SERMON SLIDE

Today, we are talking about the “Good Shepherd”.

This amazing window shows Jesus as the Good Shepherd and has the words of David emblazoned on it… Words that are familiar to many of us, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”  It was restored by Stanton Glass in 2012 in honor of two of the sweetest people I knew when I lived here before.  Gerald and Ann York were amazing people and a huge part of the ministry of this church and this community. 

All that said, I want to spend a little more time on the origin of the window.

This window was originally given by the children of Diadema McKinney Jester.  Diadema was the oldest daughter of Rev. Hampton McKinney, the farmer, businessman, and most notably for us, Methodist Preacher who brought Methodism to what would become Navarro County.  Somewhere around 1841, Diadema met Levi Jester, a young man who “drifted in from Delaware.”  Rev. McKinney opposed the marriage because they didn’t know anything about him or his family.  Diadema and Levi had 6 children:  Charles Wesley Jester , Martha Louise Jester , Mary Diadema Jester , George Taylor Jester , Vina Cordelia Jester and Levi Levin Jester.  Shortly after Levi’s death in 1851, Diadema and the family moved to Texas, where they joined her parents here in Corsicana… thus bringing the historic Jester name to Texas.  Diadema’s brother-in-law, Major Alexander Beaton, supplied them with a lot on which to build a home for the family, where they became an important part of this church and this community.

I know we still have relatives of the McKinney family here in the church, so I wanted to do something a little different.  If you are related to the McKinneys, the Beatons, or the Jesters, would you please stand up?  The historic roots of Corsicana still run deep.

It goes without saying that this extended family followed their Good Shepherd, and today we have this great place to worship. I think the window they chose to honor Diadema after her death in 1886 is fitting, not only for her, but for her entire family.

Now, enough about the history of the window; let’s talk about the story behind the window itself.  It was just 6 months ago that I preached on this passage and I will be pulling from what I shared then as we talk about the words of Jesus when he said, I Am, or as it is written in Greek - Ego Ieme, or said by Jesus in Aramaic - Ana Itay, and what the Hebrew scholars would have heard in the Hebrew as YHWH… the eternal name of God.  Here, Jesus declared his existence as God in the Flesh, and revealed the character of God as the Good Shepherd.

So, what is a shepherd?  Well, simply put, they are a hearder of sheep.  But more than that, a shepherd is often seen as an outsider.  Think of David; he wasn’t even included when his father gathered the sons together for the prophet Samuel to select one of them to be king.  David was just a shepherd.  He slept out with the sheep… he smelled like the sheep… but here is the other thing about shepherds… they care for the sheep.  They make sure the sheep get home.  They make sure the sheep eat.  They make sure the sheep stay safe.  Shepherds lead, guide, and protect.  That is what they do and who they are.  The shepherd will stand and fight the enemy, even giving up their life to protect the innocent sheep.

And here, in this passage, Jesus says that he is the Good Shepherd.

When we talked about this before, we looked at 4 things:

1)          The people understood God as a Good Shepherd.

2)          Jesus is the Good Shepherd who goes after the lost sheep

3)          Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he knows the sheep by name

4)          Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he lays down his life for his sheep

So, let’s take them one at a time.

1)          The people understood God as a Good shepherd.

All through the Old Testament, we find passages that use the imagery of God being a good shepherd for the people.

-             Psalm 100:3  “We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.”

-             Psalm 23:1-4  “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

 These are the actual words on the window itself.

-             Isaiah 40:11  “The Lord tends his flock like a shepherd.  He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”

So, when Jesus uses this imagery along with the statement, “I AM”, it is undeniable that He is claiming to be God in the flesh.  The people were looking for a Messiah who would fulfill the role of the good shepherd. Those gathered around, especially the Pharisees, knew exactly what he was saying, and as we look at Jesus’ life described in the Scriptures, we can see that he met their expectations. That’s the next three points.

2)          Jesus is the Good Shepherd who goes after the lost sheep (2 Slides)

Flip over to Luke 15. 

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! So, he tells them a parable…

“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.

Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’  I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

You and I tend to look at who is present, who is here.  We count, we say – Oh, we’ve got 80 in worship… that’s pretty good!

Or, well, there’s 99 out of 100; that’s excellent, that’s almost 100%!

But not Jesus. Jesus looks not only at who is here; Jesus looks at who is missing.  Jesus said he had other sheep not in this fold… what Jesus meant was we were missing… You and me, we Gentiles, we non-Jews.  That Jewish crowd would have been a bit perplexed, thinking they were present… they were the ones to be counted, but Jesus looked at them and beyond them. Jesus included us; now we are his sheep, and He is our one shepherd, our Good Shepherd.  A shepherd who knows you and me!

3)          Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he knows the sheep by name

In the Middle East, even today, sheep and shepherds wander the countryside. There are some fences in places, but across the Judean desert, you will find Bedouin shepherds roaming the hillsides with their sheep.

These shepherds know the safe places to pen their sheep for the night – caves, box canyons, places where they could place the sheep and then place themselves as the gate to protect them from the predators.  When a shepherd would arrive at one of these places, they might find 2, 3, or more shepherds already there with their sheep.  They just let the sheep all mingle together for the night as the shepherds visited and took turns on watch, protecting the sheep. 

Which, to a rancher, that probably sounds like a nightmare the next morning… but it wasn’t. The shepherds started calling their sheep, and the sheep came to them.

Each shepherd knew his sheep, and the sheep knew their shepherd's voice.

That’s what Jesus was talking about here in John.

You and I need to know the voice of our Good Shepherd.  We need to be able to listen for the voice of our Good Shepherd by spending time in prayer… by reading our scriptures… by gathering together in worship… by fasting… by sitting in a quiet place. 

We need to learn his voice and listen to him, so when the noises are all around us, we can still recognize the voice of our Savior who guides us, who taught us how to live and to love, and who gave his life for us… and that’s our final point.

4)          Jesus is the Good Shepherd because he lays down his life for his sheep

John 15:13 tells us, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Jesus gave.  All through the story of Jesus’ life told in the Gospels, we see moments where the humanity of Jesus could have said, “No.”

He could have given in to the temptations during his 40 days in the wilderness.

Jesus could have changed his mind in the Garden of Gethsemane when he prayed that the cup would pass from him… but he said, “Not my will, but Your will be done.”

Sermon Slide

Jesus willingly gave his life for you and for me. That’s what the Good Shepherd does… but Jesus did not give his life as one who died never to live again. Jesus gave his life, and took it up again.

That is what makes this meal, the Last Supper, this celebration of Communion so powerful… so meaningful.  We gather around this meal, remembering all that Christ did and does for us… For 2000 years, people have broken bread and drank from the cup, remembering the final meal of Jesus and the fact that he was crucified, died, and rose again.

We gather around this table not because Jesus died, but because he rose again.